Andrew Bailey said failure to agree to deal would cause long-term damage to UK economy

The governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, has warned that the economic cost of a no-deal Brexit would be bigger in the long term than the damage caused by Covid-19.

Bailey said failure to agree to a deal before the Brexit transition expires at the end of December would cause disruption to cross-border trade and damage the goodwill between London and Brussels needed to build a future economic partnership.

Latest breakthrough comes as PM says he hopes most at-risk could be immunised by Easter

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The world is moving a step closer to ending the coronavirus pandemic, the scientist behind Britainas first vaccine has declared, as Boris Johnson said he hoped the majority of those most at-risk could be immunised by Easter.

Successful trial results for the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine, suggesting it could protect up to 90% of people, are the third set of promising findings in as many weeks. Before this year, there had never been a vaccine for a coronavirus.

Private secretary to lord chief justice says it was aimpropera to seek to influence decision

The head of the judiciary has admonished six Tory parliamentarians for seeking to influence a judge overseeing a hearing this week on whether references written in support of the former MP Charlie Elphicke can be made public.

The six wrote last week to senior judges, copying in the judge who will oversee the hearing on Wednesday, expressing concern that amatters of principlea should first be considered by senior members of the judiciary and by parliament.

PM accused of double standards after email to staff in wake of Priti Patel case

Boris Johnson has been accused of double standards after writing to ministers and senior civil servants claiming there is ano place for bullyinga in the wake of a damning investigation into the home secretary, Priti Patel.

The prime minister and the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, wrote a joint email on Monday calling for relationships of amutual trust and respect between politicians and their officialsa.

Ex-leader told to retract comment that issue in party was adramatically overstateda

Labouras chief whip has told Jeremy Corbyn to aunequivocally, unambiguously and without reservationa apologise for his claims that the extent of antisemitism in the party had been adramatically overstateda, which led to his membership being suspended.

The partyas governing body readmitted Corbyn last week but Labouras leader, Keir Starmer, has refused to restore the whip to his predecessor, effectively suspending him from the parliamentary party.

Bishop of Blackburn says he and others would have to areconsider their allegiancea

A Church of England bishop has said he and other conservative evangelicals may leave the church if it changes traditional teaching on sexuality and identity.

Julian Henderson, the bishop of Blackburn, said such a move would be aa moment for people to have to reconsider their allegiance to the churcha.

Foreign ministers hope US will lift sanctions in effort to revive 2015 agreement with Tehran

European foreign ministers from Germany, France and the UK have met to discuss a joint approach with the incoming Joe Biden administration on reviving the Iranian nuclear deal.

The three nations, whose ministers met in Berlin, are hoping Tehran can reach an agreement under which the US would lift its crippling sanctions in return for Iran ending its non-compliance with the 2015 agreement constraining its nuclear activities.

Lunar landing is due in about eight days and entire mission is scheduled to last 23 days

China has launched a robotic spacecraft to bring back rocks from the moon a the first such attempt by any country since the 1970s.

The Long March-5, Chinaas largest carrier rocket, blasted off at 4.30am Beijing time on Tuesday from Wenchang space launch centre on the island of Hainan carrying the Changae-5 spacecraft.

Stricter tier system likely to be further blow to businesses reliant on commuters in city centres

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The government has told all workers in England they should work from home if possible until April 2021 as part of a move to a stricter tier system that is likely to be a further blow to businesses reliant on commuters in city centres.

Boris Johnson on Monday confirmed that under every tier of new restrictions, workers in England who can work from home should continue to do so. The rules under the new three-tier system will last until at least the end of March if voted through by parliament.

Rate of 631.7 cases per 100,000 blamed on deprivation and awilful disregarda of rules

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A district of Kent has become Englandas worst-hit Covid hotspot, with local leaders putting the jump in cases down to deprivation and a awilful disregard of the rulesa.

Swale reported a rate of 631.7 cases per 100,000 people for the seven days to 18 November, according to government figures a up from 425.8 per 100,000 over the previous seven days.

Teamas coronavirus work built on decades of research pioneered by Sarah Gilbert and Adrian Hill

• Oxford AstraZeneca Covid vaccine ahas up to 90% efficacya
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At the heart of Oxfordas effort to produce a Covid vaccine are half a dozen scientists who between them brought decades of experience to the challenge of designing, developing, manufacturing and trialling a safe vaccine at breakneck speed.

Prof Sarah Gilbert, the Kettering-born project leader, arrived at Oxford in 1994 to work with Prof Adrian Hill, a senior member of the team, on the malaria parasite, plasmodium. She soon fell into work on experimental vaccines, starting with one that roused white blood cells to fight malaria, followed by a auniversala flu vaccine.

Committee expresses dismay over lack of support in England for recently self-employed

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The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has snubbed calls to support thousands of small businesses in England on the brink of collapse that would have benefited from financial help in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, according to an all-party group of MPs.

Hairdressers, cleaners and people who started self-employment before the pandemic hit are amongmore than 1 million workers who have missed out on government support in England, the Treasury select committee said.

Matt Hancock is latest in government to heap praise on areaas Labour leaders

When Matt Hancock used an interview with Radio 4as Today programme to heap praise on the Labour leaders of Liverpool on Monday, it could be viewed in one of two ways.

Either it was an all too rare example of non-partisan politics, a health minister mature enough to recognise good governance in what is arguably the least Tory-friendly region in the UK. Or it was just the latest example of top-level trolling from Boris Johnsonas administration, some of whom seem to go so far out of their way to laud the Scousers that some observers have questioned if thereas a bet running.

London-listed group shut all of its 660 movie theatres in the US and the UK in October

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Cineworld, the worldas second-largest movie chain operator, has secured financial lifelines worth $750m (APS560m) to weather the coronavirus pandemic.

London-listed Cineworld, which shut all of its 660 movie theatres in the US and the UK in October, said the financial agreements meant it had enough liquidity to make it through next year a as long as cinemas are allowed to reopen by May.

Some literary minds crave a full-throttle rush. For others, itas the peace in birdwatching, kayaking or finding refuge in the trees

Before lockdown, I occasionally got uneasily into a sea kayak with my kids a usually unbalancing it and tipping us all in the water. Then they exchanged the big multi-seater kayak for two lighter two-seaters, which I can actually lift.

Her daring unmade bed won her notoriety a and star status among the Young British Artists. But a hoard of formative work reveals a very different talent

Before Tracey Emin, there was Traci Emin. That was how the young woman who would go on to be a star of conceptual art signed her name on a stark black-and-white woodcut poster back in 1986. It was for her degree show at Maidstone College of Art, where she earned a first in printmaking. It caught my eye a year ago while I was exploring her studio archive.

The woodcut a showing two desperate lovers clinging together in a dark night of the soul, the woman with an anchor tattoo a is part of a previously unseen hoard of Eminas all but forgotten early work that reveals a different side of the artist from the one most people think they know. Much of it is lost and exists only as slides, the originals having been destroyed, she thinks, by a former boyfriend. They show the sincere and skilled artist Emin was before she became a household name and an infamous figure to many. When I saw these student works, I wanted to get them published so that everyone else could encounter that intense young soul. I was thrilled when she let me include them in a new visual book about her art.

Priti Patel bullying forgotten as prime minister tells Commons about new Covid measures

On a normal Monday the Commons might have been preoccupied with the prime ministeras aunintentionala decision not to sack Priti Patel after she was found guilty of having broken the ministerial code on bullying. Instead, the home secretaryas behaviour was long forgotten as Boris Johnson used the time to announce the new coronavirus measures instead.

Talking via a video link from No 10, where he is still self-isolating, Johnson said we were returning to the tiered system, which worked so well the first time that a second lockdown became a necessity. Though these new tiers would be quite different from the old tiers. In some ways they would be more relaxed, with non-necessary retail and gyms now allowed open in all levels. And in tiers 1 and 2, some outdoor and indoor spectators would be allowed to attend sporting events, while in tier 2 no one one would be allowed into a pub unless they also ordered a substantial meal. Go figure.

This highly entertaining Storyville documentary sifts the evidence on the only unsolved case of air piracy in US history, to ask who the mysterious DB Cooper really was

Fans of modern American folklore may be familiar with the story of The Hijacker Who Vanished: The Mystery of DB Cooper (BBC Four), but even those who are not should relish this authoritative opportunity to pull up a seat and get out the popcorn. In November 1971, a passenger plane took off from Portland airport for a short flight to nearby Seattle. However, it was hijacked by a man who claimed to have a bomb in his suitcase. He quietly demanded $200,000 in ransom money. The plane landed, his unsuspecting fellow passengers disembarked, the cash was handed over, the flight took off again, and then DB Cooper parachuted out, at night and in bad weather, over difficult Oregon terrain. No trace of him was ever found. It remains the only unsolved case of air piracy in US history.

This wonderfully entertaining Storyville film goes some way towards finding a convincing account of who DB Cooper might have been. Writer/director John Dower talks to friends, family and acquaintances of different people who may have been the culprit. His interviewees claim to have known plans, heard confessions or seen documents that point the finger at the person they knew.

The Palestinians are hoping a Biden presidency will slow the growing rapport between Saudi Arabia and Israel

During the last year of Donald Trumpas presidency, the question of whether Saudi Arabia would make peace with Israel had come down to a question of when.

The terms of such a deal were more or less agreed during Trumpas tumultuous term, thrashed out between his envoy and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the kingdomas effective ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, who held a very different view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from other Saudi leaders.

Their outlook centred on Iran rather than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict being the centre of the regionas dysfunction. And Israel, they agreed, could help, not hinder, progress on that score. Prince Mohammed eschewed his father and unclesa views that a return to 1967 lines was a starting point for peace, in favour of the Kushner line that Palestinian leaders had caused talks to stagnate.

Ties warmed quickly, especially from May 2017, when Saudi Arabia received Trump as a conquering hero after he overturned the nuclear deal with Tehran and reorientated Washingtonas focus to Riyadh.

The secret channels used to communicate between the kingdom and Israel were discarded. So was the need for mediators, as Saudi officials made regular visits to Tel Aviv and vice versa. Denials of such trips were replaced by hints that they had taken place. Then came peace deals with Saudi allies, the UAE and Bahrain, and now a visit by Benjamin Netanyahu to Prince Mohammed on Saudi soil that Israel didnat bother to disguise.

Despite a flight path visible on flight tracking sites, which showed the arrival of Netanyahuas preferred charter jet on the shores of the Red Sea city of Neom, Riyadh responded with a pro forma denial.

There to meet the Israeli prime minister on the shores of the Red Sea was outgoing US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, on a mission to finalise as much as he can before he loses his job in eight weeks. Securing a peace pact is something Pompeo, Kushner and Trump have desperately pushed for and such a deal would indeed be seismic in the Middle East, where many are nervously awaiting its impact.

The film about the Stasi spying on East German lovers was seen as too dark, with one funder even wanting it remade as a comedy. But it went on to win an Oscar

In winter 1997, during my first year at film school in Munich, I was lying on the floor listening to music. I started thinking about how Lenin once told his best friend that he couldnat listen to his favourite piano sonata as often as he would like, because it made him soft, and might stop him from wanting to hurt the people he needed to hurt. Suddenly, an image came to my mind: a man with headphones, in a bleak and depressing attic, secretly listening to his enemies, but thereby involuntarily hearing the kind of music he has been avoiding his entire life. I opened my laptop, started typing and within about an hour had written the outline of the movie.

The trailblazing writer was loved and revered by all those who followed in her footsteps. Here they describe just what she meant to them

Jan Morris was a dazzling historian who was constantly fascinated by the new. She could throw off precise and stunningly compact reports a on the trial of Eichmann or her interview with Che Guevara, for this paper and many others a and then compose 30-page master portraits of cities for Rolling Stone. She was mellifluous and mischievous at once, and perhaps an ideal chronicler of the 20th century, as a classical Brit who nonetheless sustained an undeluded love for brash and forward-looking America. Thousands of us recognised the beauty of her watercolour prose, but what gave it fibre was its unsurpassable acuity. London for her was ahard as nails,a Kyoto a city of ghosts.

Plants are compulsive communicators, but now one expert thinks they may also have different character traits a with some more nervy than others

Name: Plant personalities.

Age: Possibly millions of years old.

A look at the history of US voting rights and what the changing demographics of the country mean for Republicans

Black and Latino voters overwhelmingly favoured the Democrats in the 2020 US election. Without their huge margins in key states, Joe Biden could not have won, the journalist Gary Younge tells Anushka Asthana. By 2045, white voters will be in the minority. These changing demographics are a concern for the Republican party. In 2013, just a year after turnout rates for black voters surpassed those for white voters for the first time, the supreme court gutted the Voting Rights Act, which affected poor, young and minority voters.

Itas important to remember, Gary tells Anushka, that the US was a slave state for more than 200 years; and an apartheid state, after the abolition of slavery, for another century. It has only been a non-racial democracy for 55 years. And that now hangs in the balance. If Biden does not produce something transformative, the disillusionment among voters may grow and people may once again look for someone who can disrupt the status quo, which is how Donald Trump won in 2016.

The fact that the president cannot hold on to power shows the checks and balances are working

Slowly, painfully, alarmingly, Donald Trump has been conceding the US presidency to Joe Biden. Over the weekend his close friend Chris Christie called his delay aa national embarrassmenta, joining judges, aides and other Republican politicians. Meanwhile the world has erupted in a chorus of derision at the state of American democracy, polluted by corruption, fake news and money. Countries whose leaders would not dream of risking an open election, let alone conceding one, mimic Moscow in ridiculing athe obvious shortcomings in the American electoral systema. Beijing celebrates by preparing to jail a clutch of Hong Kong democrats.

The reality is the opposite. The late American historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr pointed out that the US constitution regularly takes its grand coalition of diverse peoples to the brink of disintegration, shows them disaster and pulls them back. Trump in 2016 was a populist candidate who ran for election on a pseudo-revolutionary ticket against the Washington establishment. Though he won fewer votes than his opponent, Hillary Clinton, an electoral college biased to protect the interests of small states against big ones gave him the presidency. In office he ran up huge debts, was a bully and a xenophobe, and relentlessly attacked all centres of establishment power. The economy boomed.

Despite the promising trial data, a viable a and profitable a vaccine is still some way off

The stock market is cruel. AstraZenecaas reward for unveiling promising data for its avaccine for the worlda, developed in partnership with Oxford University, was a 3.8% fall in its share price. No gratitude there a just a decline of roughly APS4bn in the companyas value.

Investors have to react somehow, but the strong response looks odd. AstraZeneca, remember, has pledged to distribute the vaccine at cost during the course of pandemic. For the purposes of that pledge, itas a little vague who decides when the pandemic is over. But it has always been reasonably clear that AstraZeneca wonat make profits from the initial orders that have been received from governments and international bodies. So the day when the company can move to a for-profit model (with supplies to poorer nations remaining at cost) is still some way off.

A beefed-up tier system will be a hammer blow for pubs, bars and restaurants. The government must ensure viable businesses are still standing when vaccines are eventually rolled out

The news that the Oxford AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine can prevent up to 90% of infections is an early Christmas present for the UK. The Oxford scientistsa success comes just weeks after the Pfizer and BioNtech breakthrough. It signals that extraordinary levels of human ingenuity and expertise are providing the means to bring this pandemic to an end. It no longer feels fanciful to speculate about the return of lost freedoms in the coming spring.

It was therefore understandable that Boris Johnson chose to preface his unveiling of a winter Covid plan with an upbeat reference to the scientific acavalrya coming over the hill. But for those at the sharp end of the restrictions that the prime minister went on to announce, there was little cause for celebration.

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Boris Johnson is obsessing over tradition, but many would prefer to keep festivities small, and try something different this year

Binge in December, purge in January.

Or at least, thatas the way Britain normally does Christmas: a brief splurge of shopping, partying and stuffing our faces, before waddling into new year skint, hungover and carrying an extra half a stone. Boris Johnson is clearly a stickler for tradition, to judge from early briefings about a superspreader Yule in which up to three households could be allowed to mingle for up to five days and to hell with the consequences for intensive care units. But is a big blowout, paid for by yet more lockdown when the R number inevitably surges, really what we want this year?

Many readers thought an obituary about the man who murdered 13 women was an ahonoura he did not merit

aObituaries should be reserved for people who have done something notable with their lives, not something notorious. We should not glorify criminals by giving them attention, but instead remember their victims: Wilma McCann, Emily Jackson, Irene Richardson, Patricia Atkinson, Jayne MacDonald, Jean Jordan, Yvonne Pearson, Helen Rytka, Vera Millward, Josephine Whitaker, Barbara Leach, Marguerite Walls and Jacqueline Hill.a

So wrote a reader, one of about 80 who complained about the decision to publish an obituary of Peter Sutcliffe, the serial killer who between 1975 and 1980 spread terror across the north of England through his brutal murder of the 13 women named above, and the attempted murder of seven more. He received a whole-life sentence for his crimes.

• Limited crowds allowed in Tiers 1 and 2 from next week
• Gyms, pools and leisure centres can open in all tiers

Crowds of up to 4,000 people will be allowed to return to sporting events in England from next week, and grassroots sport will also resume as part of an easing of coronavirus restrictions announced by the prime minister. The changes were greeted with widespread relief after weeks of concerted pressure from sporting bodies and the public, who had both argued the importance of being able to participate in sport during the pandemic and also of the ability to watch it safely.

England is to return to a system of tiered restrictions from 2 December but gyms, pools, golf courses and leisure facilities will now be allowed to open in all tiers after the government accepted their positive impact on physical and mental health

The white-ball captain is adored by all but he will not be in charge forever and a succession plan will need to be in place

A quick quiz question: without looking it up, what do you remember about Eoin Morganas contribution to the 2019 World Cup final? The more retentive of you will recall his scratchy innings of nine from 22 balls. Perhaps you remember his quirky dismissal, caught brilliantly at deep point to leave England 86 for four. For a good many of you, Iall wager, the answer is almost nothing at all.

In fact, Morganas role in that final was one pieced together largely in retrospect. The soft-focus images of Morgan holding the trophy aloft against a backdrop of flames. The memorable press conference in which he attributed Englandas triumph to their diversity and claimed Allah had been with them. The numerous end-of-year retrospectives and pandemic-inspired nostalgia features in which Morgan, as captain, was naturally the most sought-after guest.

Fleetingly, it looked like Theo Walcottas first goal since rejoining Southampton would yield a precious win. Instead it spurred Wolves, who struck back thanks to Pedro Neto and came close to claiming a victory that had looked unlikely for most of the match. By the end, Southampton were grateful to cling on for a draw and extend their unbeaten streak to seven matches.

aIam very proud of my team because taking something was definitely not easy,a said Ralph HasenhA1/4ttl. aYou could see towards the end that [Wolves] had another gear to go. Seven games unbeaten is massive for us, unbelievable.a

The Real Sociedad defender on topping the La Liga table, Arteta, Wenger and the ashocka early morning call that took him to north London

aI donat know if he got a commission or something,a Nacho Monreal says and starts laughing again. aI woke up one morning to a call from Santi [Cazorla] asking me if I wanted to join. Imagine it: I was in shock, only just awake, not really with it. And by that night, I was an Arsenal player. I reckon the club said: aSanti, speak to Nacho: see what he thinks.aa

It was January 2013, deadline day, and what he thought, insofar as he had time to think anything, was that this was a one-off a an opportunity he couldnat let pass by. As for Cazorla, if he got a commission it was worth it. A supposedly short-term solution, not planning to go anywhere that morning, Monreal spent seven seasons in London, played over 250 games and won three FA Cups.

• Prop admits he was performing at 20% of ability
• Sinckler moved to Bristol during lockdown

The England prop Kyle Sinckler has admitted that a mid-lockdown move to Bristol left him performing at just 20% of his ability but credited Eddie Jonesas faith in him a and a visit from his barber a for helping getting back to his best.

The 27-year-old was one of the standout players against Ireland, making 16 tackles as part of a dominant performance by England, who have this week been bolstered by the return from injury of Luke Cowan-Dickie and Anthony Watson for Saturdayas trip to Wales.

• Ifab board expected to give assent at 16 December meeting
  
• Rule could be in place for FA Cup third round ties in January
  

The FA is to fast track trials of concussion substitutes in this seasonas FA Cup, following their approval by an expert International FA Board panel.

An Ifab committee has given its assent to the use of additional permanent substitutes in the event of a player being concussed during a match. The recommendation will go before Ifab chiefs at their annual business meeting next month.

Anne Keothavong and Leon Smith are presiding over competitive Billie Jean Cup and Davis Cup squads yet know there is still much to improve for Britainas young players

For one cloudy afternoon, Luke Milligan was as famous as Tim Henman. For the first time in 58 years, two Englishmen a one the 19-year-old son of a north London cab driver, the other the British No 1 from a gilded tennis dynasty a shared the stage on Centre Court at Wimbledon.

Dreams soared that June Saturday in 1996. Seven home players had survived the first round, which had not happened for 20 years, and here were two of them in the third round. Henman bore the greater expectations and, after the inevitable interruption for rain, completed a straight-sets win over the world No 278 on the Monday, but not before Milligan thrilled family and friends by going 3-0 up in the third set.

PM is against expected 4.1% increase, which is likely to spark public indignation

Boris Johnson believes MPs should not receive a pay rise this year, Downing Street has said, as MPs called on the government to legislate to prevent the publicly damaging pay increase.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, which sets MPsa salaries, is expected to recommended that MPs should get a 4.1% increase worth APS3,300. The move, should it go ahead, is likely to spark public indignation coupled with an expected public sector pay freeze at the spending review later this week.

MI5 assessments read out at start of appeal over revoking of Isis recruitas citizenship

Shamima Begum, who left Britain as a schoolgirl to join Islamic State in Syria, remains a serious threat to national security and should be deprived of her UK citizenship, the supreme court has been told.

Extracts of MI5 assessments of the dangers posed by the return of those who joined Isis were read out on Monday at the start of a two-day hearing challenging the decision to revoke Begumas citizenship and refuse her leave to enter the UK.

Group stages debt and tax strikes to expose apolitical economyas complicitya in ecological crisis

Extinction Rebellion is launching a campaign of financial civil disobedience aimed at exposing the apolitical economyas complicitya in the unfolding ecological crisis.

The group a which has staged some of the UKas biggest civil disobedience protests over the past two years a is turning its attention to what it says will be a sustained campaign of debt and tax strikes. It is also asking people to aredirecta loans from banks that finance fossil fuel projects to frontline organisations fighting for climate justice.

Cornish inquest finds deaths of five people in two incidents were accidental but criticises firm

A leading appliance brand should have acted more quickly to stop the sale of cookers linked to 18 deaths in the UK and Ireland, a coroner has concluded.

Geraint Williams said Beko was too slow to react when it learned that people had died and tests revealed that its cookers could cause potentially fatal buildups of carbon monoxide.

Airline finds some glassware and crockery are surplus to requirements during pandemic

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British Airways has begun selling the champagne flutes, fine china and slippers it uses in its first-class cabins, reflecting the impact of Covid-19 on its business as it operates a reduced fleet.

The bespoke items, which have been mothballed in storage because of the pandemic, are a mixture of new and secondhand, some of which have circled the globe hundreds of times in the airlineas premium First Class and Club World cabins.

Joy Andrew defies the odds again to reach milestone in acolourful and amazing lifea

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When 99-year-old Joy Andrew tested positive for coronavirus in May, staff at the care home where she lived put her on end-of-life care and prepared her family to expect the worst.

But Andrew, who has survived a Nazi assassination attempt, a horror plane crash and breast cancer, defied the odds once again and on Sunday she celebrated her 100th birthday and received a card from the Queen

Welsh Interpreter includes aYou are giddy because you look downa (Yar ydych wedi pendroni o rhan i chwi edrych i lawr)

In the 19th century the wilds of Wales began to draw the intrepid traveller but there were sometimes communication breakdowns between visitors and Welsh-speaking locals.

A 182-year-old phrasebook, compiled to make it easier for English tourists to speak with what the volume, uncomfortably, calls the Welsh apeasantrya, has emerged from archives in Cardiff.

Ex-French president accused of corruption and influence peddling for allegedly trying to bribe a judge

Nicolas Sarkozy has become Franceas first former president to appear in the dock as he went on trial accused of corruption and influence peddling for allegedly trying to bribe a judge for information.

The former leader was called under his full name, Mr Sarkozy de Nagy-Bocsa. He responded that aSarkozy was enougha. Reminded that the legal record demanded his full name, he added: aFor the moment I donat need to use it.a

Queens club that was holding a sex party was based in part of the city where indoor gatherings are limited to 25 people

New York authorities have said no to Sex and the City a shutting down a swingers club in Queens that was holding a sex party in contravention of restrictions aimed at curbing the rising coronavirus rate.

Caligula New York, which markets itself as a aprivate upscale on premise swingers club catering to people in the swing lifestylea, was shut down in the early hours of Sunday morning by local law enforcement and charged with breaking local emergency regulations and serving alcoholic drinks without the proper license, the New York City sheriffas office said.

Warning comes as man admits using Messenger to coerce children into sending explicit pictures

Police and a childrenas charity have warned that a man who admitted 96 counts of child sexual abuse could have escaped justice if technology giants had already toughened their encryption.

David Wilson targeted young boys aged from four to 14, getting them to send compromising pictures and video. Some were so traumatised that they considered ending their lives.

Regeneronas two-drug cocktail will be used to treat people who are at high risk of being hospitalized with the coronavirus

The federal government plans to immediately begin distributing a new monoclonal antibody cocktail from Regeneron, the same drug Donald Trump received when he was hospitalized with Covid-19 in October, officials said in a press call.

The two-drug cocktail with the tongue-twisting generic names casirivimad and imdevimab will be used to treat people who are at high risk of being hospitalized with Covid-19, but still have mild to moderate disease.

Police say 39-year-old had filled in a form stating he had a legitimate reason to leave home

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French police have fined a man who left his home with a written lockdown declaration stating he was out to asmash a guyas face ina.

The man, who has not been named, had reportedly correctly filled in the legally required declaration, known as an aattestationa, with his name, address and time he left his home in Lannion, Brittany.

• Activists welcome appointment of heavyweight figure
• Kerry to treat climate crisis as aurgent national security issuea
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John Kerry, the former US secretary of state and Democratic presidential nominee, has been named as a special envoy on the climate crisis under Joe Bidenas incoming administration.

Prosecutors have also launched proceedings to arrest childas mother, who left country

Prosecutors in Qatar have announced that the airport police officers who ordered forced vaginal examinations of female passengers after a newborn child was discovered abandoned in a bin have been charged and could face prison sentences of up to three years.

Prosecutors did not say how many officers faced charges over the incident last month at Hamad international airport, which sparked widespread anger in Australia, a key destination for the state-owned Qatar Airways.

Lawyers and activists say persecution of Muslims is continuing despite UN action

Myanmar is continuing to commit genocide against Rohingya Muslims in breach of orders by the UNas top court, according to human rights lawyers and activists.

The international court of justice (ICJ) in January rejected arguments made personally by Myanmaras civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, in The Hague and imposed urgent interim measures on the predominantly Buddhist nation.

Dividend payments go to Dietrich Mateschitz and family of Chaleo Yoovidhya

The energy drinks company Red Bull has paid out more than a!550m (APS493m) to its founders, including the family of a former Thai duck farmer who invented the popular drink as a ahangover curea in 1976.

The company, which is also known for its Formula One motor racing team and sponsorship of extreme sports, has paid a!211.4m in annual dividends to the family of Chaleo Yoovidhya, the drinkas inventor, who died in 2012.

Messaging app to pay users for most viral asnapsa as it seeks to head off exodus to TikTok

The promise of viral fame has always been a lure for online content creators, but Snapchat hopes it has found a more immediate way of encouraging people to post pictures and videos: a share of a daily $1m (APS747,000) prize.

The messaging app is to begin paying its users for their most viral snaps, as the platform moves to head off a feared exodus to TikTok with a new feed of user-generated content.

Drop in emissions this year is a atiny blipa in buildup of greenhouse gases, UN agency says

Climate-heating gases have reached record levels in the atmosphere despite the global lockdowns caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the UNas World Meteorological Organization has said.

There is estimated to have been a cut in emissions of between 4.2% and 7.5% in 2020 due to the shutdown of travel and other activities. But the WMO said this was a atiny blipa in the continuous buildup of greenhouse gases in the air caused by human activities, and less than the natural variation seen year to year.

The population of shortfin mako, mainly caught as bycatch but also prized by sports fishermen, is facing an alarming decline

Conservationists accused the EU and the US at negotiations of Atlantic fishing nations this week of blocking urgently needed plans to protect the worldas fastest shark species.

The strength and speed of the shortfin mako, which can swim up to 43mph, makes it a target for sports fishermen, particularly in the US, while its highly prized meat and fins have led to the shark being overfished globally a and dangerously so in the north Atlantic.

• Avril Haines and Janet Yellen would be first women in intelligence and treasury jobs
  
• Alejandro Mayorkas would be first Latino homeland security chief
• US politics a live coverage

Joe Biden, the US president-elect, has shown his determination to speed past Donald Trumpas flailing attempts to block the transition by naming leaders of his foreign policy and national security team.

Related: Antony Blinken: Biden's secretary of state nominee is sharp break with Trump era

The Biden transition team is facing pressure not to hire people with fossil fuel ties, like Obamaas energy secretary Ernest Moniz

It was a deceptively low-key occasion on Capitol Hill: an older man in a dark suit, talking into a TV camera about an energy report.

According to his firmas 362-page analysis, the fastest path to Californiaas climate goals included continuing to rely on fossil fuels. The analysis was funded by gas companies and groups related to them, but he wasnat a lobbyist or industry consultant. Quite the opposite, he was the Obama administrationas well-respected energy secretary, Ernest Moniz.

Biden has laid out a fast-paced agenda but he faces many obstacles and his plans could stall without action at the justice department

In one beating, the woman from El Salvador told the immigration judge, her boyfriendas punches disfigured her jaw and knocked out two front teeth. After raping her, he forced her to have his name tattooed in jagged letters on her back, boasting that he was marking her with his brand.

• Marco Rubio, Rick Scott and Chuck Grassley are listed
• Senatorsa acraven public silence helped enable Trumpa

The veteran Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein has publicly named 21 Republican senators he says have arepeatedly expressed extreme contempt for [Donald] Trump and his fitnessa for office.

As Trump continued to try to subvert the results of a presidential election he clearly lost to Joe Biden, Bernstein said on Twitter he was anot violating any pledge of journalistic confidentially [sic]a.

State employee spotted mysterious metal structure amid red rocks while counting bighorn sheep

A mysterious monolith has been discovered in a remote part of Utah, after being spotted by state employees counting sheep from a helicopter.

The structure, estimated at between 10ft and 12ft high (about 3 metres), appeared to be planted in the ground. It was made from some sort of metal, its shine in sharp contrast to the enormous red rocks which surrounded it.

State has alarming Covid positivity rate of almost 60% and governoras hands-off policy, including being the only state without a mask mandate, is having dire consequences

Isolating herself from family after a Covid-19 diagnosis on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, grandmother Cheryl Angel had few options for safe shelter and ended up far afield traipsing from one lonely hotel room to another.

aOur tribe didnat have anything set up, and if it werenat for my relatives, I would have died in there,a she said.

Airport staff tested and flights cancelled as officials say two cargo handlers were first cases

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A coronavirus outbreak in Shanghai has been traced to two cargo handlers who cleaned a container that had just arrived from North America, Chinese health officials have said.

Hundreds of flights were cancelled at Shanghaias Pudong International airport, one of the worldas busiest transport hubs, amid chaotic scenes caused by a sudden decision to test airport staff on Sunday.

Board of state canvassers confirms 154,000-vote victory in 3-0 vote with one abstention

Michigan election officials on Monday certified Joe Bidenas 154,000-vote victory in the state amid president Donald Trumpas brazen attempts to subvert the results of the election.

The board of state canvassers, which has two Republicans and two Democrats, confirmed the results on a 3-0 vote with one abstention. Allies of Trump and the losing Republican Senate candidate John James had urged the panel to delay voting for two weeks to audit votes in heavily Democratic Wayne county, home to Detroit.

Queens club that was holding a sex party was based in part of the city where indoor gatherings are limited to 25 people

New York authorities have said no to Sex and the City a shutting down a swingers club in Queens that was holding a sex party in contravention of restrictions aimed at curbing the rising coronavirus rate.

Caligula New York, which markets itself as a aprivate upscale on premise swingers club catering to people in the swing lifestylea, was shut down in the early hours of Sunday morning by local law enforcement and charged with breaking local emergency regulations and serving alcoholic drinks without the proper license, the New York City sheriffas office said.

• Pope Francis invited players to Vatican City for reception
• NBA players led protests against social injustice this summer

Pope Francis lauded a delegation of NBA players who met him at the Vatican on Monday as achampionsa and said he supported their work on addressing social injustice.

Five players a Marco Belinelli, Sterling Brown, Jonathan Isaac, Kyle Korver and Anthony Tolliver a were joined by NBA playersa union executive director Michele Roberts and two other union executives, Sherrie Deans and Matteo Zuretti.

A Florida retiree dived into the water and wrestled the reptile to free his puppy, Gunner

A man in Florida rescued his puppy from the jaws of an alligator, diving under the water and wrestling the reptile all without dropping the cigar in his mouth.

Richard Wilbanks, 74, was walking his Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Gunner, around the pond near his retirement home in Estero, Florida, when the alligator raced up from the water and grabbed the dog, Wilbanks told CNN.

Andrew Bailey said failure to agree to deal would cause long-term damage to UK economy

The governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, has warned that the economic cost of a no-deal Brexit would be bigger in the long term than the damage caused by Covid-19.

Bailey said failure to agree to a deal before the Brexit transition expires at the end of December would cause disruption to cross-border trade and damage the goodwill between London and Brussels needed to build a future economic partnership.

Ex-French president accused of corruption and influence peddling for allegedly trying to bribe a judge

Nicolas Sarkozy has become Franceas first former president to appear in the dock as he went on trial accused of corruption and influence peddling for allegedly trying to bribe a judge for information.

The former leader was called under his full name, Mr Sarkozy de Nagy-Bocsa. He responded that aSarkozy was enougha. Reminded that the legal record demanded his full name, he added: aFor the moment I donat need to use it.a

Ex-leader told to retract comment that issue in party was adramatically overstateda

Labouras chief whip has told Jeremy Corbyn to aunequivocally, unambiguously and without reservationa apologise for his claims that the extent of antisemitism in the party had been adramatically overstateda, which led to his membership being suspended.

The partyas governing body readmitted Corbyn last week but Labouras leader, Keir Starmer, has refused to restore the whip to his predecessor, effectively suspending him from the parliamentary party.

State reported 15,000 coronavirus cases on Saturday as it faces fears of hospital bed shortage and growing threat over holidays

Los Angeles is shutting down restaurant dining and plans to adopt a new stay-at-home order as California faces record Covid-19 infections, a potential shortage of hospital beds and an expected surge in cases tied to the holidays.

LA officials announced on Sunday that the county would be prohibiting dining at restaurants for at least three weeks starting on Wednesday, and urged residents not to travel or gather in groups for Thanksgiving this week. With a record of 6,124 new cases reported on Monday in LA and an alarming increase over the last week, the county is expected to launch another lockdown, officials said on Monday.

Francis contrasts opposition to Covid measures with ahealthy indignationa over racism

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Pope Francis has taken aim at protests against coronavirus restrictions, contrasting them with the ahealthy indignationa seen in demonstrations against racism after the death of George Floyd.

aSome groups protested, refusing to keep their distance, marching against travel restrictions a as if measures that governments must impose for the good of their people constitute some kind of political assault on autonomy or personal freedom,a he said in a new book.

Her daring unmade bed won her notoriety a and star status among the Young British Artists. But a hoard of formative work reveals a very different talent

Before Tracey Emin, there was Traci Emin. That was how the young woman who would go on to be a star of conceptual art signed her name on a stark black-and-white woodcut poster back in 1986. It was for her degree show at Maidstone College of Art, where she earned a first in printmaking. It caught my eye a year ago while I was exploring her studio archive.

The woodcut a showing two desperate lovers clinging together in a dark night of the soul, the woman with an anchor tattoo a is part of a previously unseen hoard of Eminas all but forgotten early work that reveals a different side of the artist from the one most people think they know. Much of it is lost and exists only as slides, the originals having been destroyed, she thinks, by a former boyfriend. They show the sincere and skilled artist Emin was before she became a household name and an infamous figure to many. When I saw these student works, I wanted to get them published so that everyone else could encounter that intense young soul. I was thrilled when she let me include them in a new visual book about her art.

He wanted to be a savage political cartoonist a but ended up drawing Staceyas Tropical Trifle Terrine. On the eve of the Bake Off final, the showas artist reveals his own star bakes

aIam more of a savoury kind of guy,a says Tom Hovey, the illustrator who has now made around 3,500 drawings for The Great British Bake Off. aI would have been very happy illustrating a show about, say, barbecuing a but that is not the hand life dealt me. I am quite a foodie, though, and really like to cook.a

Even if he doesnat have a sweet tooth, Hovey has had his favourite contestants over the years. aI really liked Helena,a he says, referring to the Spanish goth from last yearas series. aShe was a vampire-bats-at-home kind of woman. Her bakes reflected that and it was a pleasure to illustrate them. I also loved Kim-Joy [2018as Belgian-British finalist]. I like people who embody their worlds through their bakes. For them, itas not about producing stuff a itas about expressing yourself. I love that.a

Despite no clinical evidence, the oil is used to treat prostate issues in an international market estimated at $200m this year

Mockingbirds announce the first signs of light as Elbin Sales PA(c)rez disappears into a tightly knit maze of saw palmetto, a creeping, palm like shrub that blankets Florida. Heas searching for a berry nestled under the stalks of the spiky plant that grows wild in the American south.

While the native plant is almost synonymous with the stateas landscape, few people know the plant bears fruit. Even fewer understand that those berries a the oil of which is used primarily to treat prostate issues, despite next to no clinical evidence of its efficacy a are at the center of an international botanical market estimated to exceed $200m this year.

After 34 years a and numerous injuries a the 6ft 10in star finally retired from wrestling yesterday. But will he come back from the dead yet again?

Thereas not a day I wake up something doesnat hurt,a says a matter-of-fact Mark Calaway. aIave already got metal in my hips; Iall walk with a limp for ever; the range of motion of my head is not what it was.a It doesnat take a doctor to diagnose why. Since first stepping into the wrestling ring 34 years ago, this 55-year-oldas body has taken a staggering amount of abuse. Donning his trademark Stetson, leather coat and perfectly applied black eyeliner, Calaway a known by all as the Undertaker a has spent a career expertly clotheslining and chokeslamming his way to glory. Since his debut WWE (then WWF) appearance back in November 1990, he has become its longest-serving performer; a literal and figurative giant of the wrestling world.

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A new documentary examines the life of a SoundCloud star turned convicted criminal, and a culture that makes us aall complicita in the rise of dangerous attention-seekers

With his rainbow-colored tresses and prominent facial tattoos, itas hard not to stare at SoundCloud rapper and viral sensation Tekashi 6ix9ine. The 24-year-old, who has collaborated with Nicki Minaj and Kanye West, wouldnat have it any other way. More so than his actual music, the self-proclaimed social media asupervillain,a former gang member, and convicted felon is known for his shocking online antics and run-ins with the law. For him, no publicity is bad publicity a so does the latest Hulu documentary, 69: The Saga of Danny Hernandez, simply play into the young provocateuras indiscriminate thirst for the spotlight?

Related: 'A climate change-scale problem': how the internet is destroying us

Ross might have appeared to be the worst dressed of the Central Perk gang, but he predicted almost every trend that has emerged since the show began

The first time I watched Friends, there was a clear style hierarchy among the male characters. Gunther, Joey, Chandler, baby Ben, Mr Geller (Ross and Monicaas dad) a and then Ross.

Gunther, with his bleached-blond, close-cropped hair and bold coloured shirts, had a aNew York artist in the early 80sa vibe about him. Joey, meanwhile, with his crackpot magnetism, managed to make any outfit from sweats to plaid shirts work, with his heart-shaped face and curtains haircut. He even went accidentally high-fashion with a man-bag and, in the episode where he wore all of Chandleras clothes, predicted Balenciaga-esque layering. Even Geller Sr had a very specific rumpled, older-gentleman style about him, with his one-size-too-big suits and jumpers.

I know my daughter and I will be a little sad without our found family this holiday, but weall hope that, by this time next year, we can all be together again

I love Thanksgiving. Not the Thanksgiving of American myth, where benevolent pilgrims revel in the harvest with their good friends the Natives, whom they would never think of enslaving or massacring a not that insidious lie a but the Thanksgiving of my own making, the one that has become a tradition for me and my daughter and our found family. And I wonder how it will feel, this year, to not be able to gather and celebrate together.

Related: Even in this year of Covid, New York just can't say no to Thanksgiving | Emma Brockes

Vaccine news has me dreaming about a return to normality. But I worry something will be lost in the rush back to life as it was

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A couple of years ago, I received an email from a retired university English teacher. His eyesight was poor, and so a friend sent the email on his behalf. He had taught in Sudan, where I am from, several years ago, and being a reader of this column, sent a note reminiscing about his time there, hoping to hear some news of how it had changed. His name immediately rang a bell, and I remembered that my mother, who was an English literature student at the University of Khartoum in the 1970s, often mentioned an English professor who had brought a special passion to his classes and left a mark on her.

For an entire generation of Sudanese like my mother, whose parents were barely literate, a free university education was transformative. She had spoken so often about this particular professor that I even remembered certain turns of phrase he had used in tutorials. She confirmed it was him, her face lighting up in a way I hadnat seen in a long time. I emailed him back, and he said he did, in fact, remember my mother. It seemed as if we had all become protagonists in some literary plot, and we made plans to speak as soon as possible. Then nothing happened.

The vision of what appeared to be hair dye running down the politicianas face provoked glee. But, as a bald woman, I know linking physical appearance to morals is a lazy trope

Werenat the pictures of Rudy Giulianias hair malfunction last week wonderful? I was transfixed by footage of him bug-eyed and ranting at a press conference, as dark rivulets of hair dye (or mascara, expert opinion was divided) ran down his sweaty cheeks. The incident spawned a delighted outpouring of comment and mocking tweets. He was a Scooby-Doo villain unmasked; a gargoyle, a comic-book grotesque, and it felt so apt. For critics, it was as if corruption, lies and moral turpitude were finally oozing out of him as a tarry discharge.

It is the same satisfaction we feel as we dissect the brittle spun-sugar edifice of Trumpas hair, the harshly theatrical lines of his makeup (auna naranja espantosaa, a scary orange, as a White House housekeeper described it to the Washington Post) or his cack-handed panda-eye concealer habit. It is delicious when the facade cracks, especially in one so obsessed with surface. It feels like poetic justice when a man who built a gold tower, regularly comments on his daughteras looks and mocked a disabled reporter is caught looking diminished and ridiculous.

The fact that the president cannot hold on to power shows the checks and balances are working

Slowly, painfully, alarmingly, Donald Trump has been conceding the US presidency to Joe Biden. Over the weekend his close friend Chris Christie called his delay aa national embarrassmenta, joining judges, aides and other Republican politicians. Meanwhile the world has erupted in a chorus of derision at the state of American democracy, polluted by corruption, fake news and money. Countries whose leaders would not dream of risking an open election, let alone conceding one, mimic Moscow in ridiculing athe obvious shortcomings in the American electoral systema. Beijing celebrates by preparing to jail a clutch of Hong Kong democrats.

The reality is the opposite. The late American historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr pointed out that the US constitution regularly takes its grand coalition of diverse peoples to the brink of disintegration, shows them disaster and pulls them back. Trump in 2016 was a populist candidate who ran for election on a pseudo-revolutionary ticket against the Washington establishment. Though he won fewer votes than his opponent, Hillary Clinton, an electoral college biased to protect the interests of small states against big ones gave him the presidency. In office he ran up huge debts, was a bully and a xenophobe, and relentlessly attacked all centres of establishment power. The economy boomed.

Shutting down tax havens and cancelling debts could pay for the pandemic and more a if countries work together

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Covid-19 has hit the global economy hard. Governments around the world have already injected $11tn in fiscal measures to keep the economy afloat, and the United Nationsa conference on trade and development (Unctad) calculates that low-income countries will require an extra $2.5tn immediately to prevent economic collapse. Failure to address the economic fallout will have devastating consequences.

In answer to the big question, how are we going to pay for this, I say: we need a global response and it needs to be progressive. I recently outlined 10 possible ways to raise $9.457tn a year over the next decade, enough to not only cover the costs of the pandemic but also to meet the investments required to address the other social and environmental crises we face.

• Bengals quarterback has torn ACL and MCL in left knee
• Injury usually takes between nine and 12 months to heal

Joe Burrow, the No 1 overall pick in this yearas NFL draft, is set for a lengthy spell on the sidelines, according to reports.

The Cincinnati Bengals quarterback was carted off the field during Sundayas defeat to Washington, and ESPN reported on Monday that he has torn his ACL and MCL as well as suffering other structural damage to his left knee. Such injuries usually take between nine and 12 months to heal, meaning the 23-year-old may well miss the start of next season. At a press conference on Monday, Bengals head coach said he expected his quarterback to make a full recovery and to return at some point in the 2021 season. aHeas an expert in missing an offseason and playing effectively,a Taylor added.

• Former Spain striker denies allegations over time in MLS
• Skyler Badillo says club did not take complaints seriously

A former intern at New York City FC says she was sexually harassed by David Villa, and the club failed to take her complaints seriously.

Skyler Badillo came into contact with the former Barcelona and Spain striker while working with the MLS clubas training staff as part of her college degree.

The Indianapolis Colts quarterback never makes the game look easy, but that just adds to his ragged charm

Philip Rivers is probably going to the Hall of Fame. The main obstacle is that he has played the entirety of his career at the same time as multiple other great quarterbacks. He has never been to a Super Bowl and has never even had an individual year where he was the clear-cut best quarterback in the league. Yet watching Rivers, in the twilight of his career and clearly not fully healthy, lead the Indianapolis Colts against Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers was a reminder that he really is one of the greats.

One reason that Rivers doesnat quite get the love of those of his contemporaries is that heas never been one who makes the transcendent look routine. In fact just the opposite: few other NFL greats make one aware of the amount of effort and energy that they put into everything he does. Even his throwing motion is ragged and agonized compared to the easy sling of a Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes.

Fleetingly, it looked like Theo Walcottas first goal since rejoining Southampton would yield a precious win. Instead it spurred Wolves, who struck back thanks to Pedro Neto and came close to claiming a victory that had looked unlikely for most of the match. By the end, Southampton were grateful to cling on for a draw and extend their unbeaten streak to seven matches.

aIam very proud of my team because taking something was definitely not easy,a said Ralph HasenhA1/4ttl. aYou could see towards the end that [Wolves] had another gear to go. Seven games unbeaten is massive for us, unbelievable.a

• Preston acknowledge charge and will respond on Tuesday
• Fisher appeared to grab Callum Patersonas groin during game

Darnell Fisher, the Preston North End defender, has been charged with misconduct by the Football Association after appearing to grab the genitals of an opponent, Sheffield Wednesdayas Callum Paterson.

Camera footage showed Fisher twice touching Paterson in the groin area during Saturdayas Championship game at Deepdale, a match won 1-0 by Preston in Tony Pulisas first game in charge of Wednesday.

A look at the history of US voting rights and what the changing demographics of the country mean for Republicans

Black and Latino voters overwhelmingly favoured the Democrats in the 2020 US election. Without their huge margins in key states, Joe Biden could not have won, the journalist Gary Younge tells Anushka Asthana. By 2045, white voters will be in the minority. These changing demographics are a concern for the Republican party. In 2013, just a year after turnout rates for black voters surpassed those for white voters for the first time, the supreme court gutted the Voting Rights Act, which affected poor, young and minority voters.

Itas important to remember, Gary tells Anushka, that the US was a slave state for more than 200 years; and an apartheid state, after the abolition of slavery, for another century. It has only been a non-racial democracy for 55 years. And that now hangs in the balance. If Biden does not produce something transformative, the disillusionment among voters may grow and people may once again look for someone who can disrupt the status quo, which is how Donald Trump won in 2016.

M Night Shyamalanas 2000 fantasy drama showed that superhero narratives can be told with patience and a straight face which changed the genre forever

If they gave awards for the dumbest expository title cards to open or conclude motion pictures a a lively ceremony, to be sure a 2000as undisputed winner would have been Unbreakable. M Night Shyamalanas superhero thriller begins with some fun facts about comic books, a then-70-year-old medium treated like a phenomenon as new and foreign to its time as internet porn.

aThere are 35 pages and 124 illustrations in the average comic book. A single issue ranges in price from $1 to over $140,000. 172,000 comics are sold in the US every day. Over 62,780,000 each year. The average comic collector owns 3,312 comics and will spend approximately 1 year of his or her life reading them.a From the bizarre specificity of these questionably sourced statistics to the niggling incongruity that puts cents on one dollar amount and not the other to the impromptu multiplication lesson, itas a precious gem of bad writing.

Dedicated to her partner, Atwoodas first poetry collection in more than 10 years is wry and entertaining

Margaret Atwood does not do nostalgia. This collection of poems, her first in over 10 years, is a reckoning with the past that comes from a place of wisdom and control. Now 81, she harnesses the experience of a lifetime to assume a wry distance from her subjects a as if, in an astounding world, nothing could throw her off balance. This mastery, even at her most subversively fantastical, is part of what makes her an outstanding novelist. But poetry is different. Atwood is an undeceived poet and, even though the collection is full of pleasures, reading her work makes one consider the extent to which poetry is not only about truth but about the importance of being, at times, mercifully deceived a what Robert Lowell dubbed the asanity of self-deceptiona.

The title poem is about words threatened with extinction.

The celebrated actor brings his youth in Dublin to vivid life in a tender account of how failing as a priest and a plumber led him to Hollywood

aHow many times have I returned in my dreams to this hill?a asks Gabriel Byrne in the opening sentence of Walking With Ghosts, immediately setting alarm bells ringing in my head. For the following few pages, it did indeed seem that I had entered all-too-familiar territory, what the historian Roy Foster called athe Vaseline on the lensa genre of Irish memoir.

The initial signs were not good: agold and green fields... a dark-haired girl... an old farmer woman sat on a one-legged stoola. As someone who read an extract from Frank McCourtas acclaimed Angelaas Ashes thinking it was a parody of an Irish misery memoir in the vein of Flann OaBrienas satire The Poor Mouth, I found myself wondering if this might be a celebrity version of the same. I am relieved to say it is not.

Streamed, recorded at Leeds Playhouse
The expressive force of singer Wallis Giunta and dancer Shelley Eva Haden evoked todayas US in a spirited production of Brecht and Weillas sung ballet

Itas not simply the cardinal sins of Roman Catholic theology that are invoked in Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brechtas sung ballet, their last collaboration. This pungent 35-minute work is rarely given its full title a Die sieben TodsA1/4nden der KleinbA1/4rger, The Seven Deadly Sins of the Petty Bourgeoisie, but itas the one that underlines Brechtas Marxist approach. Sloth, Pride, Anger, Gluttony, Lust, Greed and Envy are ordered to create a narrative trajectory set in 1930s America, essentially an attack on capitalism and the hypocrisy of bourgeois values.

The twin-sister protagonists a Anna I portrayed by a singer and Anna II by a dancer, representing two sides of the same person a are sent away by their family to earn money to build them all a home. Over seven years, the sisters move through seven cities, one sin for each. In this spirited new Opera North production, social-distancing a so neatly managed as to be quickly forgotten a reinforces the loneliness of the Annasa trials. And, thanks in part to Michael Feingoldas 1992 translation delineating both the exploited and the exploitative, the pairing of the lows of the Depression with the lavish highs of Hollywood meant an often uncanny resonance with contemporary American ills.

The story of the soon-to-be former president might be compelling, but recent political history isnat simple entertainment

Finally, the US presidential race is over. Which unfortunately signals the start of another race: who will be the first to get a Trump biopic out of the traps? For subject-hungry Hollywood, it is too juicy a story to resist: a tale of megalomania, scandal and surreally absurd incident, with a supporting cast of colourfully extreme characters. And Jared Kushner. Itas Succession, Idiocracy and Downfall rolled into one!

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Singer wins three awards, extending her record overall tally, while Justin Bieber and the Weeknd also score three wins each

Taylor Swift has extended her lead as the most awarded star in American Music Awards history, with three wins on a night that also rewarded Justin Bieber, the Weeknd, Doja Cat, BTS and more.

The pop music awards, now in their 48th year, gave Swift the top prize of artist of the year, following the release of acclaimed album Folklore in July. She also won favourite female artist, and favourite music video for Cardigan, bringing her overall tally to 32 wins.

Streaming services expect rise in searches for the 70s pop-reggae genre, a staple of the blues parties that shaped UK music

One of the most memorable moments in Steve McQueenas Lovers Rock a the latest film in his five-part anthology series Small Axe a comes when a room full of young revellers sing Janet Kayas classic Silly Games with their eyes closed, lost in the music, as they imitate her signature falsetto.

A staple of the lovers rock genre, which emerged in the 70s and was a blend of pop, reggae and disco, Kayas song is the centre piece of McQueenas film, which is itself an ode to the house parties, or abluesa, that his auntie attended as a young woman.

Messaging app to pay users for most viral asnapsa as it seeks to head off exodus to TikTok

The promise of viral fame has always been a lure for online content creators, but Snapchat hopes it has found a more immediate way of encouraging people to post pictures and videos: a share of a daily $1m (APS747,000) prize.

The messaging app is to begin paying its users for their most viral snaps, as the platform moves to head off a feared exodus to TikTok with a new feed of user-generated content.

A born internationalist, Blinken will seek to soothe the frayed nerves of western allies

• Joe Biden to nominate Antony Blinken as US secretary of state

After reports first emerged on Sunday night that Antony Blinken would be secretary of state in the Biden administration, one interview from his past began circulating on social media.

It was a September 2016 conversation with Grover, a character from Sesame Street, on the subject of refugees, directed at American children who might have new classmates from faraway countries. aWe all have something to learn and gain from one another even when it doesnat seem at first like we have much in common,a Blinken told the fuzzy blue puppet.

Quinn credited with boosting agreatest social media campaign in historya, raising more than $220m for ALS research

Patrick Quinn, whose personal battle with Lou Gehrigas disease helped power the Ice Bucket Challenge fundraising campaign, has died aged 37, seven years after his diagnosis, according to the ALS Association and his supporters on Facebook.

Quinn, who was born and grew up in Yonkers, New York, was co-founder of the campaign that raised more than $220m for medical research into amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), more commonly known in the US as Lou Gehrigas disease, or in the UK as motor neurone disease. Quinn was diagnosed with ALS on 8 March 2013.

Voters in the Sunshine state have backed the Fight for $15 demand but the federal minimum remains stuck at 2009 levels

It has been a long time coming but Hector Rivera is hopeful that one day soon he will be able to take a day off work. The 61-year-old works as a janitor in Miami, Florida, making just over $9 an hour. Because the pay is so low, Rivera works two janitorial jobs and scrambles to find gig jobs on the weekends in order to cover his rent and bills every month.

aTrying to survive on this salary is extremely difficult because Iam constantly looking for more work,a said Rivera, a Dominican and one of the millions of Latino and Black Americans who are disproportionately represented in the low-wage sector.

Powell has made a raft of incorrect claims, including that Georgiaas voting software was created at the behest of late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez

Perhaps Sidney Powell has gone too far even for Rudy Giuliani this time.

The Trump campaignas legal team has moved to distance itself from the firebrand conservative attorney after a tumultuous few days in which Powell made multiple incorrect statements about the election voting process, unspooled complex conspiracy theories and vowed to ablow upa Georgia with a abiblicala lawsuit.

Raymond Deskins charged after breathing forcefully over two women during altercation outside Trump golf club in Virginia

A man seen forcefully exhaling on two women outside Donald Trumpas Virginia golf course has been charged with assault.

Raymond Deskins, 61, was charged with misdemeanor assault after a private citizen obtained a warrant through a county magistrate, the Loudoun county sheriffas office said on Sunday. Deskins did not immediately return a request for comment.

The Palestinians are hoping a Biden presidency will slow the growing rapport between Saudi Arabia and Israel

During the last year of Donald Trumpas presidency, the question of whether Saudi Arabia would make peace with Israel had come down to a question of when.

The terms of such a deal were more or less agreed during Trumpas tumultuous term, thrashed out between his envoy and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the kingdomas effective ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, who held a very different view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from other Saudi leaders.

Their outlook centred on Iran rather than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict being the centre of the regionas dysfunction. And Israel, they agreed, could help, not hinder, progress on that score. Prince Mohammed eschewed his father and unclesa views that a return to 1967 lines was a starting point for peace, in favour of the Kushner line that Palestinian leaders had caused talks to stagnate.

Ties warmed quickly, especially from May 2017, when Saudi Arabia received Trump as a conquering hero after he overturned the nuclear deal with Tehran and reorientated Washingtonas focus to Riyadh.

The secret channels used to communicate between the kingdom and Israel were discarded. So was the need for mediators, as Saudi officials made regular visits to Tel Aviv and vice versa. Denials of such trips were replaced by hints that they had taken place. Then came peace deals with Saudi allies, the UAE and Bahrain, and now a visit by Benjamin Netanyahu to Prince Mohammed on Saudi soil that Israel didnat bother to disguise.

Despite a flight path visible on flight tracking sites, which showed the arrival of Netanyahuas preferred charter jet on the shores of the Red Sea city of Neom, Riyadh responded with a pro forma denial.

There to meet the Israeli prime minister on the shores of the Red Sea was outgoing US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, on a mission to finalise as much as he can before he loses his job in eight weeks. Securing a peace pact is something Pompeo, Kushner and Trump have desperately pushed for and such a deal would indeed be seismic in the Middle East, where many are nervously awaiting its impact.

Lawyers and activists say persecution of Muslims is continuing despite UN action

Myanmar is continuing to commit genocide against Rohingya Muslims in breach of orders by the UNas top court, according to human rights lawyers and activists.

The international court of justice (ICJ) in January rejected arguments made personally by Myanmaras civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, in The Hague and imposed urgent interim measures on the predominantly Buddhist nation.

Police say 39-year-old had filled in a form stating he had a legitimate reason to leave home

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French police have fined a man who left his home with a written lockdown declaration stating he was out to asmash a guyas face ina.

The man, who has not been named, had reportedly correctly filled in the legally required declaration, known as an aattestationa, with his name, address and time he left his home in Lannion, Brittany.

Lunar landing is due in about eight days and entire mission is scheduled to last 23 days

China has launched a robotic spacecraft to bring back rocks from the moon a the first such attempt by any country since the 1970s.

The Long March-5, Chinaas largest carrier rocket, blasted off at 4.30am Beijing time on Tuesday from Wenchang space launch centre on the island of Hainan carrying the Changae-5 spacecraft.

Pollutants from farming, heating and vehicles beyond levels needed to ensure breathable air

Governments across Europe are failing to protect their citizens from toxic air pollution, with most Europeans still breathing filthy air in their cities, according to data.

Pollutants from farming, domestic heating and vehicles are beyond the levels needed to ensure breathable air within World Health Organization guidelines, despite EU legislation, government pledges and years of campaigning.

Drop in emissions this year is a atiny blipa in buildup of greenhouse gases, UN agency says

Climate-heating gases have reached record levels in the atmosphere despite the global lockdowns caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the UNas World Meteorological Organization has said.

There is estimated to have been a cut in emissions of between 4.2% and 7.5% in 2020 due to the shutdown of travel and other activities. But the WMO said this was a atiny blipa in the continuous buildup of greenhouse gases in the air caused by human activities, and less than the natural variation seen year to year.

Prosecutors have also launched proceedings to arrest childas mother, who left country

Prosecutors in Qatar have announced that the airport police officers who ordered forced vaginal examinations of female passengers after a newborn child was discovered abandoned in a bin have been charged and could face prison sentences of up to three years.

Prosecutors did not say how many officers faced charges over the incident last month at Hamad international airport, which sparked widespread anger in Australia, a key destination for the state-owned Qatar Airways.

Israeli PM flew to Saudi Arabia to meet Mohammed bin Salman and the USas Mike Pompeo

Benjamin Netanyahu made an unannounced trip to Saudi Arabia over the weekend to meet the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, according to an Israeli cabinet member.

The Sunday night visit would mark the first reported meeting between leaders of the long-time foes, one that Israel has been pushing for in its efforts for regional acceptance despite previously being considered a far-fetched ambition.

Airline finds some glassware and crockery are surplus to requirements during pandemic

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British Airways has begun selling the champagne flutes, fine china and slippers it uses in its first-class cabins, reflecting the impact of Covid-19 on its business as it operates a reduced fleet.

The bespoke items, which have been mothballed in storage because of the pandemic, are a mixture of new and secondhand, some of which have circled the globe hundreds of times in the airlineas premium First Class and Club World cabins.